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Hamas warns Abbas not to make changes to Palestinian Authority

JERUSALEM — The Hamas leader Khaled Meshal warned the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, not to revamp the Palestinian Authority in remarks Wednesday that pointed to potential friction as Hamas prepares to form a new government.

Meshal spoke at a news conference in Cairo, where he and other exiled Hamas leaders have been conferring with senior Hamas figures who came from inside the Palestinian territories.

After sweeping the parliamentary elections two weeks ago, Hamas is preparing to put together a new government, though Abbas, commonly known as Abu Mazen, will remain president of the Palestinian Authority.

It is not clear how this relationship will work - or if it will work - given the sharp political differences between Abbas, a moderate, and Hamas, the radical Islamic faction. But Meshal said that Abbas should not try to reshape Palestinian institutions without consulting with Hamas.

"This is a message to Abu Mazen and other brothers in the authority to stop issuing decrees and decisions," Meshal was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.

"We will not deal with them as legitimate," he added, though he did not cite specific examples.

Abbas met Hamas leaders in Gaza on Saturday and relations have appeared cordial. But the relationship is likely to become much more complicated starting next week, when the Palestinian Parliament convenes on Feb. 16 to start work on the new government.

Meshal said Hamas would not lay down its weapons when it takes over the government. "Hamas will rule and continue resistance," he said, "and the people will see how we can reconcile resistance and the exercise of power."

Abbas opposes attacks against Israel and says he wants to pursue peace talks. He has called on Hamas to honor all existing agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Hamas has carried out the deadliest attacks against Israel, though it has largely abided by a truce for the past year. Abbas and the new government will both have responsibility for the security forces, but no one has said how those powers will be divided.

In the Gaza Strip, where violence has been on the increase in recent days, Israeli soldiers said they shot and killed two Palestinians and wounded a third before dawn Wednesday as they neared the Karni Crossing with Israel, Palestinian medical workers said.

U.S. rejects Israeli stance

The United States rejected Wednesday any unilateral Israeli move to set its border with the Palestinians, distancing itself from remarks by Israel's acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, Agence France-Presse reported from Washington.

"No one should try and unilaterally predetermine the outcome of a final status agreement," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters after talks in Washington with the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni.

She was reacting to Olmert's statement Tuesday on Israeli television that the Jewish state would retain the Jordan Valley, the "larger settlement blocs" in the West Bank and a "reunified Jerusalem" in any final peace deal.

Rice reiterated President George W. Bush's position that it would be necessary to take into account "new realities on the ground" in the territories seized by Israel in the 1967 war with its Arab neighbors.

"But under no circumstances should anyone try and do that in a preemptive or predetermined way, because these are issues for negotiation at final status," she said.